Common-Law or get married?

[Whitehexe]

I’m a Canadian citizen that has been living overseas (Japan) for a number of years. My partner and I have been living together just over a year now (3 years+ of dating) with utilities being a mix of his and my name, and both of our names on the housing contract. Aside from those we have no other financial ties together.

We plan on getting married, but wanted to wait a few years yet to save money and find a good way to please both families ceremony wise. In the meantime, as my job contract here is finishing next year, we want to make plans to live in Canada.

From my understanding, we could apply for common law as we are now, correct? My main concern is that the only thing really stopping us from getting married is the hassle of planning a wedding that both families can attend, and the cost. Would having nothing major stopping us from getting married hurt our application? We COULD just sign the license at city hall and forgo the ceremony for now, to the disappointment of our families, if it would be better for our plans.

Any tips or suggestions? He’s not a big photo person but we do have some photos from our dating history, as well as chat logs and such. Any other evidence that would be helpful or necessary?

 

[Cadwife_UKhub_UKbaby]

You'll be fine as common law, as long as you have the items requested on the check list. Be sure to have letters from family/friends state they know you have been in a 'marriage-like relationship for X number of years', and other similar statements, to show that you're 'Not just roommates'...I think I read that suggestion somewhere when preparing our application. As long as there are no red flags, re: your relationship, the worst that will happen will be they ask for more proof.
I can only give my personal example, but we have recently been approved via the common law route. I found the hardest thing was proving financial dependence since we always kept our money pretty separate. I printed out 3 months of back statements for each of us, showing how we split household costs by labelling transactions. Probably was overkill but oh well! We also filed some forms at our work to name each other as beneficiary for our pension. Anything like that which you can do to show you are like a married couple (Maybe a joint bank account, life insurance policy, etc?) will strengthen your application.
A friend of mine who applied in-land also wrote a letter in her application explaining why her and her boyfriend weren't married yet.
Good luck! It sounds like you have a straight forward application so you should be just fine going the common law route. Don't rush the marriage unless you want to!

 

[singleman]

Common law has same rights as wife as far as property more. IF U R IN DOUBT make a pre-nup agreement applies to both common and wife. Sorry if i u dont like it?

 

[Amy mouse]

To help you could get some family and friends to write a supporting letter. Stating you are in a common law relationship. Supporting paperwork can only benefit you. Eloping is an option but if your families are likely to get upset then is it really what you want? It's not easy too make families happy when your come from different continents. I got married in canada last year but we broadcast it live on Facebook, so our families could be involved. That worked out great. Reading the live feed afterwards was amazing, you could see the love and it made everyone happy. We have been married a little over a year now. Our application was sent to the Sydney NS office in August and we are still waiting for confirmation. Exciting times